Developers

You need to begin by reading the Users Guide. acquiring and installing the necessary basic tools (a JDK, Tomcat, MySQL, and whatever other database systems you intend to use), setting up appropriate environmental variables, and downloading and installing both the binary and source JAppGen distributions.

JAppGen applications are generated from a specification written in an extended version of Relax NG, an XML schema language. There are two variants of Relax NG: a more verbose XML syntax and the more concise compact syntax. Tools for automatically converting between the two forms and between them and XML 1.0 DTDs and W3C XML Schema. trang is one such tool. It will convert any of these to any other, with the exception of XML Schema, which is output-only.

You can see the current version of the specification language by clicking on jags on the submenu on the left of this page. An older version is at old-jags.html.

JAppGen's directory structure is more or less conventional for an Ant-managed build.

  +${JAPPGEN_HOME}
    +eg                             // described below
    +lib
      +ant
        ant-1.5.4.jar
        LICENSE
        optional-1.5.4.jar
      +jappgen
        jappgen-${VERSION}.jar
        LICENSE
      ...
    +jappgen
      build.properties              // editable configuration file
      build.xml                     // Ant script
      +bin
        jappgen.sh                  // generates applications
        jappgen.bat                 // Windows version
      +dist                         // created by dist target
        jappgen-bin-${VERSION}.zip
        jappgen-src-${VERSION}.zip
      +src
        +java
          +org
            +jappgen
              **/*.java
        +test                       // unit tests, same dir struc as src/java/
      +target                       // created by compile target
        jappgen-${VERSION}.jar      // created by jar target
        +classes
          +org
            +jappgen
              **/*.class
        +test-classes               // compiled unit tests, same dir struc

The library directory lib/ contains external jars organized by source organization together with applicable licenses.

The Ant script build.xml controls the build process. Source code src/java/org/jappgen/**/*.java is compiled into the corresponding place under target/org/jappgen/**/*.class (where "**" represents zero or more intervening subdirectories).

Unit tests in src/test/org/jappgen/**/*.java are similarly compiled into target/org/jappgen/**/*.class.

When tests are successful, a JAppGen jar file is created and written to target/jappgen-${VERSION}.jar The jar file includes class files under target/classes but excludes unit test classes.

Periodically a release is created as two zip files.

The binary release is a subset of the full directory tree, including bin/, eg/, lib/, and documentation but excluding src/ and the directories generated by JAppGen builds, dist and target. The jar file for the release is in lib/ as lib/jappgen/jappgen-${VERSION}.jar.

The source release contains only the Java source code, jappgen-${VERSION}/jappgen/src/ and the files below that.

Detarring the source distribution creates part of the directory structure above. Running the Ant script build.xml with an appropriate target creates most of the rest.

By default the $JAPPGEN_HOME directory is named jappgen-{$VERSION}.

The section describes the directory structure of an application generated by JAppGen. By default an application is created in a subdirectory of $JAPPGEN_HOME/eg/, but other target directories can be specified.

  +etc
    ${APP_NAME}.jags                // application description
    +${APP_NAME}
      build.properties              // editable configuration file
      build.xml
      +bin
      +dist                         // created by application's dist target
        ${APP_NAME}-bin-${VERSION}.zip
        ${APP_NAME}-src-${VERSION}.zip
      +lib
        +ant
          ant-1.5.4.jar
          LICENSE
          optional-1.5.4.jar
        ...                         // subset of jars, those needed by app
      +src
        +java
          +**                       // organization path, eg com/example/
            +db                     // Hibernate - persistence layer
              **/*.java
              **/*.hbm.xml          //   Hibernate mapping files
            +biz                    // Spring Framework: middle tier
              **/*.java
            +front                  // JavaServer Faces MVC 
              +beans/**/*.java      //   backing beans 
              **/*.java             //
              
        +test                       // same dir struc as src/
      +target                       // created by app's compile target
        jappgen-${VERSION}.jar
        +classes
        +test-classes               // unit tests, same dir struc as +classes
      +web
        *.jsp                       // wrapper files for web/*.jsp
        +tiles
          *.jsp
        WEB-INFO
          applicationContext.xml    // Spring/Hibernate control file
          faces-config.xml          // JavaServer Faces control
          tiles.xml                 // Struts Tiles control
          ${APP_NAME}.tld           // application-specific tile defs
          web.xml                   // application control file